The Great Discovery
by Happy Doodle
Summary: Fred and George are ready to discover something that will most probably change their pranking career...


Fred and George stood in the caretaker's damp office, smirks firmly plastered on their faces, with no trace of repentance or guilt at all.

The evil-tempered caretaker, Argus Filch, swooped down on both of them like a vulture and snarled at them sarcastically, ' It was fun, wasn't it? Letting of a dungbomb in the middle of breakfast?'

' Yeah, it was,' Fred grinned jauntily. ' The best moment of my life ever since I was born.'

' _Totes_ will try it again ,' George agreed cheerfully, completely unaware of the slightly fuming man.

Filch's eyes glinted malevolently, and wheezed angrily, ' I don't care what you say. You will learn to pay your respects to me. Perhaps you will learn to shut your mouth when you know what I have in store for you. C'mere, and write down this detention slip.'

He set down two identical sets of papers in front of the boys and turned his back on them, muttering to himself while trying to search for something in his trunk.

George wrinkled his nose at the slip. Sure, they had tossed a dungbomb in Percy's porridge as a joke, but they didn't expect that they would have detention for that. Hey, pranking your own brother should be acceptable, shouldn't it? But the annoying, old caretaker seemed to not get their harmless joke.

He looked at his other twin, who seemed to have no intention of filling out the slip as well, and was concentrating hard on fashioning a paper aeroplane out of the paper (they had learnt how to build paper aeroplanes from their father). Out of boredom, George started to scan the room. The walls were completely hidden by rows upon rows of cupboards and drawers, each labelled carefully with yellowing paper.

A certain drawer caught George's attention. One drawer very close to Filch (who was still rummaging in his trunk furiously), was labelled ' Confiscated and Highly Dangerous'. Whatever that were held in it, would probably be interesting and fun. That sparked his interest.

Wordlessly, George poked at Fred's elbow, signalling him to look at the drawer. Upon looking at the label, an identical, malicious thought passed through the twins' minds. Call it twins' intuition, perhaps.

George slipped his hand into the pocket of his robes, folding his fingers around the last dungbomb. Thank goodness he had the precognition that he would need it later, so he had only stuffed one dungbomb in Percy's porridge (it worked out just fine, Percy was doused from head to toe in blackened porridge and sugar). Muttering a simple spell, the bomb lit up, then he tossed it at Filch's back with all his might and fled them room.

' What the-' The caretaker snapped, tried to stand up, but was engulfed in a brown smoke cloud that smelt so putrid and horrible. Fred covered his nose and mouth with his left hand, rushed over to the drawer and randomly grabbed something out of it before taking off in full speed out of the room.

The last thing he heard was Filch's enraged roar followed by series of coughs and gags.

* * *

' Oh brother dear,' George looked at what Fred had managed to steal from Filch's drawer. ' Don't tell me I spent my last, precious dungbomb just for some old bit of parchment?'

Lying on Fred's bed, was some old parchment, that looked no different from the parchment they used for their essays.

' Hey,' Fred argued. ' I took it out of the Confiscated Drawer. It must have at least some sort of secret power.'

George snorted, ' As if parchment could help us with our pranks. Are you sure you took it out of the correct drawer? You know, you can be kind of careless. Maybe you pulled it out of Filch's stationary drawer instead. Hand me that parchment, let me see it.'

He took out his wand and tapped the parchment lightly, ' Reveal your secrets!'

Nothing happened.

' Hey!'

Nothing happened.

' C'mon!'

Fred laid back on his bed casually, ' Just leave it alone. I don't think it can help us with our pranks. Just treat this as a, uh, trophy of our success from skiving off a detention. I swear that this is the best day of my life.'

At Fred's words, something seemed to flash across the surface of the map for a fleeting second. Almost like a drop of an ink, but it was gone.

' Holy! Something showed up!' George exclaimed. ' Do that again. Maybe there is a password of some sort. Repeat what you said just now.'

' Uh, I swear-'

The change happened again.

The twins looked at each other, unsure what to do next.

' Guess it has some sort of hidden powers. But now we know we need a password,' Fred whistled. ' Any ideas?'

' S'up, what are you guys doing here?' Lee Jordan showed up behind them, peering over George's shoulder.

' Uh nothing,' George shoved the parchment away, not wanting to let anyone know their secret trophy, not even Lee Jordan.

' Are you doing homework?' Lee squinted at the parchment. ' Are you kidding me? It is the first time I have seen you guys actually doing homework.'

The twins giggled nervously.

' You know what,' Lee shrugged and turned to walk out of the room. ' When you guys are acting weird and solemn like this, I know you are up to no good.'

The map changed again, this time words actually showed up. The letters 'MARAUDER' spread out on the map and disappeared after a couple seconds.

' It did it again!' Fred whispered. ' This time it is "up to no good"?' The words showed up again.

' Ahem,' George coughed. ' Let me take a guess. Up to no good swearing.'

Only MAR appeared.

' I swear up to no good.'

MARAUD.

' I swear I am up to no good.'

MARAUDE

' I swear that I am up to no good.'

' C'mon,' Fred ruffled his red hair in agitation. ' What's missing? What did Lee say just now?'

' He said "When you guys are acting weird and solemn-", you know what? Let's try another one: I weirdly swear that I am up to good.'

MARAUDE

' Georgie, try the other adverb.'

' I solemnly swear that I am up to good.'

Blossoming across the originally blank parchment, were the words ' Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-makers are proud to present THE MARAUDERS MAP'. At the back, was a complete floor plan of the entire Hogwarts castle, except there were moving squares on top.

' Merlin's pants,' Fred breathed, holding up the map. ' These are names! No wait, they are moving! We can track everyone we want!'

' Holy Filch! Is that a secret room? I was so sure it was just a fake trapdoor,' George pointed a corner where the spot 'Mrs Norris' was standing at.

That night, the boys stayed late into the night, studying the functions of the map, already excited to put the map into use to prank Percy, their older brother.

 **I want a Marauder's Map too. D:**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or Harry Potter. JK Rowling does. :)**


End file.
